SRT-8 Daytona Clone

[Mike DC]

If those sheetmetal/rails are anything near solid then I hope it ends up saving another car somehow.  

People pay a lot of good money to AMD and do a lot of labor to reconstruct that much of a unibody.  There it is, still factory welded together, ready to go under another car. 

[remta1]

Not quite finished yet but this is how I did mine all steel plate ,solid plate for the nose side, nice and lightweight and moves real fast/nice on the motors.Will change to twin headlights once approved by the transport dept for road use or I might keep the single lights ...sort of getting used to them   

I like what you have done here . It is another unique solution to the headlight issue . I am kind of sold on the simplicity of the drop down concept. What kind of actuator are you using. Is it part of the original vacume system or is it an electro mechanical set up?

Cheers for the comments , it is the headlight setup from 1990's Honda accord , whole system cost me $80 bucks from a car wreckers , not too hard to wire up and doors open super quick , still has the factory manual adjustment too

[remta1]

That's fairly interersting Remta, didn't know you were building a wing car  
You'll need another thread with lots of pictures now

Another vote for the headlight blackouts Stevearino  

Yep
...will have a seperate thread in the not too distant future once I get my S#%t together

[djcarguy]

  i knew ya needed the wing on sooner for downforce.. now look the body has gone airborn and tore lose from the frame .. good thing ya was able to catch the body an chain it too the rafters.hahahah


     looking good an scarey at same time seperated an body hanging like that. will bee watching an all the best on mating it too the newer under bits.   what maybee all done in 1 or 2 months???lol dj

[moparstuart]

 

[BigBlockSam]

 

[Stevearino]

Well time seems to really fly these days. In a couple of weeks it will be 1 year since I went down to Georgia to pic up my 68 Charger shell for this project. I saw a discussion on another thread about the cost of these projects and did a little cypherin' my self. I was feeling pretty good about how much actual money I had spent on the project thus far and then I started to calculate the hours. I started to work in earnest on this thing in January of 2013 and as you can see I still have a long way to go. Conservatively I would say that I spend about 12 hrs on average a week working on it so thus far that comes to about 700 hrs give or take. Now if you calculate a low shop rate of about $50 per hour that is about $35,000.00 worth of labor. I could have saved a lot of time by buying AMD replacement sheet metal but that would have been real money I would rather spend on things I know I can't do. So the way I am figuring if you wanted to go into business building these things you could build them for about $100,000.00 and sell them for about $50,000.00. That fits in with all of my projects in the past which are based on the theory of negative profit.

[Baldwinvette77]

A pretty neat calculation, and pretty valid, but if you have think of the time you spend on your car as "work" and in dollars and cents you probably aren't having much fun with it, however i already know you are enjoying it, so just let the time go by, a friend of my dad tells me to think of spare time as if i was working for 20$ an hour, that my time was valuble and i should be doing something meaningful... but screw that i'm on this planet to enjoy myself and if i cant do that in my spare time, then when can i do it 

also what do plan on doing for the one year anniversary?

[Stevearino]

A pretty neat calculation, and pretty valid, but if you have think of the time you spend on your car as "work" and in dollars and cents you probably aren't having much fun with it, however i already know you are enjoying it, so just let the time go by, a friend of my dad tells me to think of spare time as if i was working for 20$ an hour, that my time was valuble and i should be doing something meaningful... but screw that i'm on this planet to enjoy myself and if i cant do that in my spare time, then when can i do it 

also what do plan on doing for the one year anniversary?

Probably loose interest.

[Swampwing2]

When I think of all the time spent on my car projects over the years, I look at what others do with theirs.  I could spend my time playing sports, sitting in bars, playing music, watching TV, or any of endless possibilities.  Many of which result in personal satisfaction.

At the end of a time period, I end up with something tangible that typically has some (significant) value, as well as the mental satisfaction of knowing that I did what others can only dream of. Calculating how you spend your time based on people who work their entire careers doing the same thing is silly.  Do those same people spend all their free time doing the same thing in their spare time. Most likely they don't want anything to do with it.

Keep up the good work and never look back. 

[Stevearino]

When I think of all the time spent on my car projects over the years, I look at what others do with theirs.  I could spend my time playing sports, sitting in bars, playing music, watching TV, or any of endless possibilities.  Many of which result in personal satisfaction.

At the end of a time period, I end up with something tangible that typically has some (significant) value, as well as the mental satisfaction of knowing that I did what others can only dream of. Calculating how you spend your time based on people who work their entire careers doing the same thing is silly.  Do those same people spend all their free time doing the same thing in their spare time. Most likely they don't want anything to do with it.

Keep up the good work and never look back. 

Don't misunderstand I am really enjoying this project after years of "gotta do's" this is my first "wanna do" project in years. I was just illustrating for those who would be curious what something like this would entail to undertake. i.e. simply lots of dedicated time or lots of cash. I choose the time for the same reasons you stated. I have always felt the need to create and what some consider work or drudgery gives me immense satisfaction.  Thanks for the encouragement anyway it is always appreciated.

[Stevearino]

Once I got the body off of the frame it was clear to see some areas that needed some more work . I ended up replacing the rear right side upper wheel opening. Took some time to go over and clean up some rust issues I couldn't reach also. I cleaned and treated the inner rockers and added a new pinch weld flange in a location that would be plumb to the door sill pinch weld as the new car chassis has this arrangement. So weird that the distance between the door sill pinch weld  on the 68 is the same width as the 06 Charger. I am not complaining. The pictures show the added flange which is stepped 1/4 inch and over laid on the inside of the rocker and counter welded on the outside. This will be seam sealed. The picture of the right side of the car and the completed flange show it dipping down at the back. This is an intentional little custom tweak I hope looks good in the end. It mimics the old Nascar flared quarters.

[Baldwinvette77]

The suspense is killing me 

[Stevearino]

The first picture is of the inner rocker rust primed. Kind of working back and forth on the old and the new right now. I hopped over to start clearing the rest of the material that would be in the way on the new chassis. Some of this is a rough guess from measurements as I will have to see where the exact interferences are as I lower the shell down on the new chassis.
Old time hot rod guys probably never had to clear expansion foam out of the frame rails. The stuff gets everywhere. The last pic is the frame rail cleared down to where it is plumb and the new shell will be able to slip over it. Sounds easy anyway.

[Stevearino]

The suspense is killing me 

Me too.

[Mike DC]

Sounds easy anyway.

Wait . . . you mean the body swap isn't a bolt-on deal?

[Stevearino]

Sounds easy anyway.

Wait . . . you mean the body swap isn't a bolt-on deal?

If it is I am missing the bolts and instructions to this kit. I'll have to call the manufacturer.

[tsmithae]

If you do, PLEASE, record that conversation!

"Excuse me but there seems to be no instructions on how to bolt this '68 Charger shell onto an SRT8 chassis... Do you think you could have R&D send me over the instructions?  How much would it cost to get the installation kit as well, I can't seem to locate mine..."

"uhhhhhh.... *click*"

[Stevearino]

If you do, PLEASE, record that conversation!

"Excuse me but there seems to be no instructions on how to bolt this '68 Charger shell onto an SRT8 chassis... Do you think you could have R&D send me over the instructions?  How much would it cost to get the installation kit as well, I can't seem to locate mine..."

"uhhhhhh.... *click*"

[mauve66]

If you do, PLEASE, record that conversation!

"Excuse me but there seems to be no instructions on how to bolt this '68 Charger shell onto an SRT8 chassis... Do you think you could have R&D send me over the instructions?  How much would it cost to get the installation kit as well, I can't seem to locate mine..."

"uhhhhhh.... *click*"

if the phone person is too young they will probably say, " Sir, Dodge didn't make a Charger until 2006...."

[Budnicks]

If you do, PLEASE, record that conversation!

"Excuse me but there seems to be no instructions on how to bolt this '68 Charger shell onto an SRT8 chassis... Do you think you could have R&D send me over the instructions?  How much would it cost to get the installation kit as well, I can't seem to locate mine..."

"uhhhhhh.... *click*"

if the phone person is too young they will probably say, " Sir, Dodge didn't make a Charger until 2006...."

so true, sad but so true...

[Mike DC]

       
I would respond, "Just like how Chevy didn't make a Camaro until 2010, right?"

[JB400]

I thought that was a Vega

[djcarguy]

    Some funny stuff about it not being a bolt on swap,there guys i allready bought the swap kit it was on speacal sale price $799.99 came with big manual an 40 lbs of bolts an bracket. was odd that some of the bolts an brackets had some rust, he said just a small moisture problem in storage? metric bolts and manual in korean,what the hellloo?

  WELL . can we PRETEND sereus for a minute and try too focus . this is getting really interesting an at a important stage of setting an BOLTING the new body into place,thanks.  back too you steve ,got lots of bolts handy for bolting the body on?? lol   great work an looking forward to the install ,latter  DJ

[Stevearino]

Well the excess metal removal on the 06 continued getting down to the final pinch weld flange. I did not need to get into removing the windshield bed at this time but since I was cutting stuff off I decided to rough trim the area down 3 ".